An NYSE Scalper's Tale - One Year Later....

Recently it occurred to me that this blog has made it through it's first full year of existence.

I really can't believe that I've been blogging for that long. It seemed just like yesterday I decided to start this thing.

So how did this idea of blogging about my trading day begin in the first place?

We were at a shopping mall and I remember my wife trying on some jackets. I could tell by the look on her face that she really liked that jacket a lot...but when she looked at the price tag, she reluctantly put it back on the rack.

She mentioned something about it being too expensive, but it was that look of disappointment on her face as she was putting that jacket back on that rack that really made me think.

I thought to myself that I never want to see that look of disappointment on my wife's face ever again and that I would work as hard as I could to get this trading thing off it's feet.

At the time, I had been trading full-time for a about 4 months (but at the prop firm for 10 months), but I was not happy about where it was going. There were times I had bad days and I never bothered to review why the day turned out so bad and that I found myself repeating the same mistakes over and over gain.

I thought that the best way for me to improve is to review what I do every day and try to analyze what went right and what went wrong.

If I just did this on my own and wrote it down in a notebook, I knew that I'd start getting lazy and that it wouldn't last.

And so, I decided to do it online where it was visible to all and by doing so, I would keep myself honest in reviewing my trading daily. On February 16, 2006, the very first entry to this blog was made.

I tried to think of what I would have liked to have seen when I started to trade for a living....by outlining the stocks traded, the number of trades, a review of what went right and what went wrong, along with the good and bad trades.

That first month, I think I had a grand total of 21 visits to the blog. This would continue for several months and it got to a point where I thought that this blog was hopeless...that no one really wanted to read about my trading day and the lessons I was learning. And since the number of visits were so low, I found myself skipping my daily review on the bad days and no one seemed to notice (since no one was visiting!).

I had serious thoughts about shutting this blog down. But I'm glad I didn't. Here are the latest traffic stats (click on image to view):



As you can see, there was a sudden surge of traffic in August 2006.

What happened to cause this sudden surge?

At the time, I had no idea what the blogging etiquette was and I wanted to put links on my page. I sent an email to none other than Trader Mike and I simply told him that I was placing a link on my page to his site and I was asking his permission to do so.

He emailed me back, telling me it was OK and that I didn't need to ask for permission to put links on my site. When I read that email, I felt myself go red in the face with embarrassment (talk about a newbie blogger!).

Well, the next day after I emailed Trader Mike, I saw that my blog was listed under his daily "Recent Links" section, and the rest, as they say, was history.

During this past year, this blog has undergone quite a few changes. The daily posts had it's format slightly revamped and for several months I stopped composing my "On Tap" because I felt that no one was really reading it (and I still think that not many people are reading these posts).

At some point, I also started my "Top 3 List", where I would list the top three most expensive item of the week. There were things such as cars, watches, houses, and wines. I did some research and put some facts together. But these posts required a tremendous amount of time and I have yet to revive these posts.

I had also wanted to post things Toronto-related. I'm usually quite active in the city during the weekends and I had wanted others to see what kind of a city Toronto was. I only managed to provide one post....most of the time I just kept forgetting to bring the digital camera where ever I go. Perhaps when summer kicks up, I'll continue with those posts.

Currently there are only 5 types of posts: my daily post, on tap posts, Weekend Reading posts, my monthly review, and my Trader Monthly Review Roundup.

But let me tell you folks....blogging isn't easy. It takes a lot of time and effort to keep it alive and I can tell you that I've wanted to kill this blog multiple times.

Even though I only post once or twice daily, it takes up more time that I ever thought possible. Just my daily report of my trading day takes me about an hour or more to think of a main point, compose, post up charts, and to review my trades.

Then it takes me another 30 minutes or more to compose my On Tap posts. Altogether, that's at least an additional hour and a half of EXTRA work I do (on top of my usual review and research routine). I could very well have used that time to spend with my wife or to just flat out de-stress.

I really have to hand it to those other trading bloggers who can produce 2 or more daily posts with detailed charts...those are the folks with real dedication not only to themselves, but to you, the readers.

And every time I get one of those nasty Anonymous comments about how my trading style sucks or why I'm such an idiot for trading the way I do (I've had quite a bit of those), it just takes me one step closer to shutting this blog down. Why should I have to constantly defend myself and subject myself to such negativity....if this blog didn't exist, I could always use the extra time wisely.

BUT, I'm going to keep chugging along until I get to where I want to be. Once I'm there...I don't know....maybe that will be the time to close this blog down....but until then, I'll be here to give you regular postings in the hopes that each and every one of you can come away with something positive from this blog.

Just remember that this blog was mainly setup for me to help myself in my trading...to closely examine what I do every day...and that this serves as my own personal trading diary where I can put my thoughts, feelings, and emotions about what I do.

So has this blog helped me in my trading after one year?

I don't know. I can't answer that question. I may have had the same trading difficulties with or without this blog. Maybe success could have been greater without this blog. Who knows?

What I do know is that I feel much better about what I do by blogging about it. I feel as though I am actively trying to identify things I need to improve upon and that I am actively trying to do something about it.

Will I crash and burn? Will I ever get to where I want to be with this? Will I get the chance to continue doing what many people dream of doing for a living? Only time will tell. Thus, I hope that you, the good readers, will follow me in my journey and to see where this thing takes me!

And don't worry honey....I'm really working as hard as I can on this and I hope that very soon I can make that jacket yours....